Nowhere to Run to Except to Your Memories
by octopusinc
Summary: When tragedy strikes Chihiro, there is nothing left for her in the Human world. But upon her return to the Spirit world, she finds it is not the wonderland she left. (Chapter 3 up AND fixed!))
1. The River Lethe Runs Deep

Disclaimer: I do not own iSpirited Away/i. It is the property of Hayao Miyazake, Studio Ghibli, and Disney. I am not making money of of this fanfiction. So there.  
  
"What?"Chihiro asks, undoing the black ribbon in her hair.  
"Why is it that you never have a boyfriend?" Mitsuko turns from the mirror in her gym locker, her lipstick poised over her lips. "You're smart, pretty, and nice, and there's gotta be boys you're interested in, right?"  
"I'm just not that interested in dating, I guess," Chihiro replies. She unties the ribbon at her collar, looking to make sure her gym bloomers are still in her locker. "My studies are more important to me...I want to go to Tokyo U."  
"Wow, really?" Mitsuko pulls her shirt over her head, throwing it into her locker. "That's quite an aspiration. Why do you want to go there? Shichikokoyama College is a lot closer. That's where most of us are going to end up."  
"I know," Chihiro replies, unbuttoning her vest. She hangs it carefully on the hook. "But I just want to get away. My parents have been really argumentative lately, and my mother has been really hard on me lately." Chihiro sighs, undoing her buttons. "I make good grades, and I stay out of trouble, but it's never enough for her."  
"Tough break," Mitsuko agrees. "Daddy's happy when I pass." She pulls her gym shirt on. "You sound bitter, you guys just get into a fight or something?"  
Chihiro nods. "Just this morning. I got an eighty-ninth percentile on the last English test we took, and she says that there's no way colleges are going to seriously consider students who make below ninety-fifth percentiles." Chihiro sighs. "I tried to tell her that it was a bad test, but she said colleges won't know when somethings a bad test--I'll just have to try harder."  
Mitsuko makes a choking motion with her hands on her throat. "Jesus. What a hardass." She glances over at Chihiro, and something catches her eye. "Where'd you get that tie in your hair, Chihiro? It's pretty."  
Chihiro absently puts a hand to the base of her ponytail. "Is it purple?"  
"Yep."  
"I got it such a long time ago," Chihiro says, "I don't even remember where. It seems like some one gave it to me....but..."Chihiro stares at the door of the locker. "I can't remember who it was."  
"S'okay. Hey, hurry up and get dressed, you know how bitchy the gym teacher gets if your late."  
"True." Chihiro folds her shirt neatly and places it on her locker shelf. 


	2. Memories Float and Cats Run Away

Disclaimer: I do not own iSpirited Away/i. It is the property of Hayao Miyazake, Studio Ghibli, and Disney. I am not making money of of this fanfiction. So there.  
  
"Mother, I'm home!" Chihiro calls from the foyer. She slips her shoes off, leaving them in the front hall and steps onto the main level of the house, slipping on her house shoes. She shuffles into the kitchen. "Mom?"  
She looks around. "Strange, she's usually home by now." She crosses the kitchen to the refrigerator. Opening the door, she bends down, looking around. "Food....food. Need food."  
The glass door in the back of the kitchen rattles, and Chihiro looks up. Big blue eyes stare back at her through the glass.  
"Sen!" Chihiro says. She crosses the kitchen floor, her house shoes slapping against the linoleum, and slides open the door. She crouches down, balancing on the balls of her feet, and the little Siamese arches up to her hand. "I was wondering where you've been for the past few days. Don't you run away on me like that." She strokes the pretty Seal Point down her back, eliciting a purr from the small feline. "You know you're not supposed to be an outdoor cat in the first place. Now stay inside."  
Sen purrs, the vibrations rumbling against her slender chest. She opens her eyes suddenly, the light blue orbs piercingly bright. The hair on her back stands up. She suddenly shoots from under Chihiro's hand and streaks away into the grass.  
"Sen!" Chihiro cries, standing up. "Sen!" She turns halfway in the doorway to go get her shoes, but she knows that by the time she got them, Sen would be out of sight. She runs out into the grass after the cat, house shoes still on.  
She runs to the edge of the back yard, the top of the hill their house sits on. She scans about, looking for the cat. Suddenly she spots it, bounding down the side of the grassy hill. "Sen!" she calls, the wind rising up, blowing her hair and pushing down the grass. "Dammit!"  
She starts to pick her way down the hill, arms out to her sides so as to keep her balance. She walks awkwardly sideways, slipping on the long grass, grass that comes up to her thighs. She slips, sliding on her hip, scraping her leg and ripping her sock. She rights herself, looking at the torn fabric. "Mother's going to kill me," she sighs. "Stupid Sen."  
She looks around again, and just catches sight of the cat as it disappears into the edge of the trees.  
"Dammit," Chihiro says under her breath. She runs the rest of the way down the hill, picking up momentum, and just stopping herself before she crashes into the trees. She peers between the trunks, looking for the cat, and starts to carefully make her way over the bracken. "I wish I had worn my regular shoes," she says to herself. "These house shoes are going to be ruined. I hate that cat."  
She pushes aside the branches of the trees, nearly stumbling on the stones that line the road just beyond them. She steps over them awkwardly, trying to keep herself from falling, and turns around, looking at them. "They're not stones," she says. "They're little shrines."  
Again, Chihiro stares ahead, as if trying to remember something. She looks down the dirt road, trying to recall why the little shrines by the side of the road make her so reminiscent. The paved road runs perpendicular to the dirt path she's standing on. She looks back up, into the forest. The lush green leaves rustle in the wind.  
"Why...is this so familiar?"  
She looks along the edge of the road as it curves away into the forest, and suddenly she spots movement.  
"Sen!"  
The cat looks over her furry shoulder, then scampers farther up the path. Chihiro starts to run. "Sen! Sen, come back here!" The tiny, sharp rocks in the road hurt her feet as she presses down on them through the thin soles of her house shoes. "I'm going to kill that cat!"She runs, every so often catching sight of Sen as she runs in the woods ahead of her.  
She suddenly stops, out of breath, and leans over, bracing herself on her knees. I wonder if a cat is even worth all this trouble, she thinks as she pants. Stupid Sen. She knows she's supposed to be an indoor cat, so I guess being outside is just too exciting for her. All I know is that when I catch her, I'm going to cut her legs off. Then she won't be able to run away any more.  
She looks up the road, trying to catch sight of the feline. Something catches her eye out of the corner of her vision. She looks over to her right. Squatting there in the trees is a white stone statue, fat and grinning. Statues and shrines. People out here in the rural prefectures are so superstitious. The wind picks up again, blowing her hair forward into her face. She hears Sen's piteous meow, and grumpily starts trudging further up the path.  
It seems as though she walks up the path forever, but she finally spots Sen, arching her back and rubbing up against another white stone statue, seemingly right in the middle of the road.  
"Sen!" Chihiro calls. At the sound of Chihiro's voice, Sen looks up, a lazy sort of look on her face, as if she's saying, "Took you long enough." And with that, Sen turns, scampering through a barrier of overgrowth that blocks the end of the path.  
Chihiro walks up to the statue, looking at it. Seeing it form the side, there are two faces, one facing the way she came, and the other facing the end of the path. This looks familiar, too. Why is all this so familiar?  
"No way! I'm not going in there!"  
Chihiro looks up, looking over the overgrowth at the end of the path. Little bits and pieces of memories flash through her mind: a white dragon, red wooden tokens, little nuggets of gold. Like a dream...a dream I had a long time ago...  
She peers at the overgrowth, and something red catches her eye. She walks over toward it, pushing the vines and leaves aside. Behind it is a solid wash of red. She taps it with her finger, and some of it crumbles and falls to the ground. She steps back, looking at the blemish she made, the white spot now where the red used to be. "It's plaster," she says to herself. "It's a...gate."  
She pats her hand along the red wall, and it suddenly lets off, the growth giving way under her hand. She grabs the vines and pulls on them, and they break from their stems that have grown over the top of the structure. She jumps back as they fall to the ground, revealing a long, long space of darkness, the faintest of light at the end. And two bright, glowing orbs in the blackness.  
"Sen!" Chihiro calls. The cat rises from her haunches, scurrying over to Chihiro. She picks her up, holding her to her chest. "What have you found here, Sen?" she asks the cat soothingly, nuzzling her cheek against the cat's soft fur. "What is this place?"  
She walks forward, still holding the cat in her arms. Branches and clumps of plaster crumble beneath her ruined house shoes as she walks, looking around as best she can. As her eyes adjust to the darkness, she can see that she is in a tunnel of some kind.  
A bell rings, loud and clear, echoing through the tunnel. Chihiro looks around, trying to find what it is that is making the noise. It ceases abruptly, and then starts up again. Chihiro reaches in her pocket, pulling out her cell phone, which reads that her father is calling. She pushes the "Talk" button.  
"Moshi-moshi," she says, trying to keep her voice soft so that it doesn't echo too loudly in the tunnel. Four words run from the phone her father speaks on and over the analog system, into Chihiro's phone.  
It slips from her fingers, and falls to the floor with a clatter. 


	3. Pale Horses and Memory Floods

Disclaimer: I do not own iSpirited Away/i. It belongs to Hayao Miyazake, Studio Ghibli, and Disney. I am not making moeny off of this fic. So there. Notes: Kaonashi=No Face  
.  
.  
"Your Mother is dead."  
.  
.  
Chihiro sits in the hospital, staring straight ahead. Doctors shuffle past, talking to one another in low voices. The red vinyl of her seat is cracked, digging painfully into her thigh. She slowly drops her eyes from the wall down to her shoes, her dirty, absolutely ruinous house shoes, shoes that carried her all the way here to the hospital from the woods.  
A nurse spots her, and walks over to her, kneeling in front of her. "Can I help you, sweetheart?" she asks, balancing on the balls of her feet. She is young and pretty, her hair cut choppy and layered, with a kind face. Pinned to her wihte dress is a name tag that reads "Shimizu."  
Chihiro looks up into her the nurse's somber eyes. "Can you tell me how she died?" she says, her voice monotonous and listless.  
"Are you the Ogino girl?"  
Chihiro nods, only moving her head ever so slightly.  
"I'm so sorry for you, I--"  
"Please just tell me how she died," Chihiro says, looking at the nurse, but not really seeing her.  
Nurse Shimizu sighs, looking at the floor. "Well, it--she, she was driving home from her office in Mitsumo, and her...her car went off over one of the hills between here and there. The crash...it....it broke her neck. She was a DOA, there was nothing--"  
Chihiro nods, stopping Shimizu. She stares at the crisp whiteness of the nurse's collar, and suddenly her vision blurs. She closes her eyes, and hot tears drop onto her cheeks from her eyes as her face seems to tighten. She buries her face in her hands, sobbing. Shimizu wraps her arms around Chihiro's slender shoulders, pulling her to her shoulder. Chihiro shudders as the sobs rack her body, and Nurse Shimizu strokes her back, trying her best to soothe her.  
Chihiro pulls away, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands, her face red and swollen, her eyes bright. "It's just...we got in a fight this morning, she left angry, she didn't even say good-bye." Chihiro's voice breaks as she begins to cry again. "And now she'll never--"she sniffs, looking away, trying to get a hold of herself. She looks back at Nurse Shimizu. "Is my father here?"  
"He's on his way. I talked to him on the phone, he said he might be a while, but that he would come here to get you."  
Chihro nods. "He works at the university in Hachizuma. It's about an hour away from here, so he should be here soon, I guess."  
"Shimizu!" A doctor peers around the corner into the lounge, looking franctic and brandishing a clip board. "We need you in the ER, pronto!"  
Shimizu rises, nodding to the doctor, and then turns back to Chihiro, her hands folded in front of her. "Are you sure you'll be all right waiting here for him?"  
Chihiro nods, looking down at the floor. Shimizu scurries off in the direction that the doctor departed in.  
Chihiro is left in the lounge, on the scratchy vinyl seat, alone with her thoughts.  
*"You make me sick, how ungrateful you are, Chihiro! We moved away from the city, started a new life out here, just so that you could have a less stressful environment to go to high school in. I uprooted my entire life for you and your father. I work hard at the shop so that you can go to a good university. And this is how you repay me? Eighty-nine's are not compensation for all my effort. You're ungrateful, that's all you are Chihiro. Ungrateful!"*  
Chihiro closes her eyes, trying to stop the memories from coming, but they are relentless.  
*"Ungrateful? Ungrateful, Mother? Don't give me that. We moved out here in the first place so that /iyoui would be lessed stressed, not me. You're so selfish. All I do is try to make you happy. All you do is try to make you happy. So why aren't you happy, Mother?!"*  
The events of the morning play themselves like a film on the blackness of Chihiro's eyelids. She sees her mother close her eyes, taking a deep, angry breath through her nose. She sees her storm out, slamming the sliding glass door so hard that it nearly shatters. She sees her coming back into the kitchen, swiping her keys off the counter, and then making a second, less emphatic exit. Her mother getting into the car, buclking her seat belt, and then driving out of the driveway and down their street in a huff.  
She sees her mother in the car again, her neck broken, her eyes open, looking over to the side. Hey blue pupils slide to center and focus, looking straight at Chihiro.  
Chihiro opens her own eyes, and Nurse Shimizu is kneeling in front of her.  
"Are you all right?" Shimizu asks. "I think you fell asleep."  
Chihiro shakes her head, as if to clear it. "Yeah. I'm fine."  
"Your father is here." Shimizu's voice is dark and anxious. "I'll take you to him."  
Chihiro rises from the chair for the first time in two and a half hours, and her legs ache with cramps. She ignores the dull ache and follows Shimizu out of the lounge and into the main part of the hospital. They are walking down the central hall, where Chihiro expected to find her father waiting for her, but he's not standing in the reception area. They take a left and beging to walk down the ER hallway.  
"Where is my father?" Chihiro asks.  
Shimizu is quiet as she opens a door on their right. On it is labeled "Ogino Akio." "He's...he's right in here."  
Chihiro walks slowly into the room. Inside is a myriad of small , quiet noises. A ventillator goes up and down. A heart monitor beeps slowly and stedily. The room is dark, the curtains drawn, but Chihiro can see the large figure on the bed. The door clicks shut behind her.  
"Daddy?"Chihiro shuffles in her house shoes closer to the hospital bed. A lamp on the bedside table casts wan light on her father's face, causing the wrinkles and creases to be greater and more emphasized than usual. He looks at his daughter, a sadness in his eyes such as she has never seen before.  
"My little...Chihiro." Her father's voice is strained and sad, full of grief and weariness. "I am....so sorry."  
Chihiro edges a little closer to the bed. "What...what happened?"  
Her father sighs, a large, hopeless sound. "I shouldn't have driven. I was so upset...your mother and I hadn't been getting along very well, as you knew, but...I still wanted to work it out. I...I loved Yuuko so much." A tear slid from her father's lax eye, the saddest sight Chihiro had ever seen.  
"I really....I can't live without her, Chihiro."  
Chihiro looks up, looking at her father.  
"I was driving along the road to here from Hachizuma and...I just let go of the wheel, I...I don't know...I just let go..."  
Chihiro looks around at the equipment her father is hooked up to, the equipment that is keeping him alive. "You can't live without her? So you...this was your fault? You crashing?"  
Her father nods, ever so slowly and sadly.  
Chihiro nods as well, fast, darting movement of her head. "I see. You couldn't live without her." She clenches her hands into fists, so hard at the nails bite into her tender skin, and hot liquid pools in her palms. "Did you ever even think about me?!" she screams. "Did I ever even cross your mind?! My mother died today, you bastard! And so you decide to leave me without anything, an orphan?!" Chihiro's face screws up, and she sobs. She lifts her hands to her face, and as soon as they touch her skin, she knows that she will now have blood on her cheeks. She cries and cries into her hands, standing perfectly straight and still in the middle of the room, the salt water washing in and over her tiny, deep wounds in her palms.  
"Chihiro."  
Chihiro sniffles, looking up through her fingers at her father.  
"I know that what I did was selfish. I know that I wasn't thinking. But you must be courageous, my little Chihiro. You must be strong. Do not let your paretns mistakes haunt you like spirits for the rest of your life." He settles, his head seeming to sink further into the pillow. "And now, brave one, I have one final favor to ask of you."  
Chihiro pulls her hands away from her face, which is streaked with tears and blood. "What is that?"  
"Walk out of this room now and continue your life. Do not watch me die. Walk out of here and don't look back."  
Chihiro turns. She places one foot in front of the other, and she walks out of the room, her eyes wide and her mouth open, as if she is under a spell.  
*"Don't look back."*  
Her events of her adventure, the adventure lost to her memories and claimed by her dreams, come flooding back to her in a rush with those words. Kohaku, releasing her hand slowly, as if he doesn't want her to go. Zeniba, smiling fondly at her. Kaonashi, bobbing his head at her. Rin, eating her grilled lizard, temping the Aogaeru, the frog foremen. Yu- baaba's baby, Bou, the little flitting bird the Yu-bird harpie became, and the bouncing heads, Kashira. All of it comes flooding back to her.  
She runs out of the front doors of the hospital, Nurse Shimizu calling after her, and doesn't even hear it as her father's heart monitor drops to one, monotonous tone. 


End file.
